Monday, December 24, 2007

I Hate the Corruption of Capitalist Christmas

There's something rotten about Christmas and I'm not talking about the interminable tree-lighting ceremonies, seasonal egg-nog hob-nobbing, abominably animated TV snowmen, secret santa stranger gifting or enforced pretending to have goodwill toward all men, no matter how brain-dead -- although those would be bad enough.

Sandra has pointed out to me that as painful as these seasonal personal appearances can be, they serve the higher purpose of helping me to seem like a down-to-earth, folksy, regular guy in preparation for the next election.

But at this time of year I'm constantly pissed that Christmas has been distorted and deformed from it's original meaning as celebration of mankind's salvation through the Virgin birth and sacrifice of God's only son -- a divine product which has succeeded spectacularly in the free market of faith and commerce.

Don't get me wrong, I have no quarrel with commercialism. I'm not one of those homespun hand-wringers who denounces Christmas consumerism, bemoans the demise of crafty-wafty handmade toys and then bombards the kids with a boatload of garish chinese plastic crap.

I enjoy the sight of conspicuous consumption in the stores, the sound of cash registers ring-a-ling-ing, the heartwarming aroma of overheated lights, fake snow and plastic trees in the mall -- all the happy tidings of seasonal profits. Christmas and capitalism go together perfectly like ham and cheese -- or like Christianity and capitalism. But unfortunately the joy of Christmas capitalism is just a veneer that hides a dark secret, a diseased heart.

What I hate is that fat evil man in the red underwear, the crypto-communist double-agent who has insinuated himself into the center of Christmas -- Socialist Santa. I know Santa is only a myth, but like most liberal myths he is a trojan horse with a rotten core that threatens to destroy society, and in this case Christmas, from within.

Think about it, Santa celebrates the classic socialist canard of equality of outcomes -- in his world all the nice children are entitled to the same net present value whether they are rich or poor. Socialist Santa makes no reference or allowance whatsoever for the child's material circumstances -- flying in the face of every law of economics. This undermines the very fabric of our socio-economic system which demands that the capitalist class deserve more privileges and rewards for the same effort.

Don't call me a Scrooge for exposing Santa at this time of year because Scrooge is even worse -- the Engels to Santa's Marx. Don't get me started on how Scrooge all but destroys his successful and efficient business model in the name of cheap sentimentality.

Similarly, Santa's insidious and sanctimonious naughty/nice paradigm has no basis in classical economics and can easily be manipulated into anti-capitalist propaganda. No doubt any young entrepreneur who harnesses the low-wage labour of his less-fortunate schoolmates to turn a tidy profit would be unfairly dumped into the Socialist Santa's undeserving 'naughty' category.

Nice guys finish last in business for a reason and we shouldn't be deluding our children with the fantasy that being nice by itself will gain them future material rewards. We should be teaching our future leaders about the sanctity of private property and free markets not filling their heads with the cottonwool of niceness.

An even more serious problem is Socialist Santa's Soft-on-crime attitude. My New Government of Canada is trying to make sure that youth offenders get more jail time so they can learn the difference between right and wrong because a coddled kid is a career criminal. But Soft-on-crime Santa's only punishment for young violent criminals is a lump of coal. Where's the justice and deterrence in that -- the juvenile delinquent will probably lob it through a school window and get sucked ever deeper into a cycle of crime and vandalism.

On the production side, Socialist Santa is virulently protectionist and anti-globalization. He uses one inefficient local factory to service his entire market. No global supply chain, no economies of scale, no rationalization of manufacture to free trade zones, no product assembly in minimal wage jurisdictions, no worker monitoring or wastage surveillance, no just-in-time inventory control.

His workshop must be run as some sort of socialist cooperative or communist collective because there is no management chain-of-command. The worker/inmates running the asylum are happy and jolly and obviously overpaid.

The pernicious message we are sending our children is that a fat old fart is able to run a successful global enterprise by breaking all the cherished laws of business and economics. Christmas should be a time of family values and capitalist celebration, not hijacked for partisan anti-free market propaganda.

It is no coincidence that most experts locate Socialist Santa's headquarters within the borders of Canada. Under 60 years of almost uninterrupted Liberal rule, this country has a sad history of being a second-rate socialist regime. This once-proud country had become a tawdry haven for communist dictators, socialist engineering experiments, anti-capitalist terrorists, and anti-American propagandists.

But my New Government of Canada will use all our resources to protect our true capitalist north. Our patrol planes and ships will root out all socialist threats, whether they be Soviet-style red armies or Socialist Santas.

Not Stephen Harper

About Me

I am a cat person and an AC/DC fan. My favorite color is camouflage and my personal hero is Friedrich Hyek. I don't trust liberals, socialists or other stupid people. My friends and family call me Commander-in-Chief.